Suchergebnisse

Purpose
This paper describes the sustainability partnership between the City of Vancouver and the University of British Columbia (UBC) and, in particular, the co-curricular Greenest City Scholars graduate student internship program, which has been developed by the two organizations. Through the program, UBC graduate students work on projects at the City that help to advance sustainability targets. The paper aims to explore the successes, challenges and lessons learned from the program.


Design/methodology/approach
This case study uses literature and document review, observations, program participant evaluation surveys and project impact survey feedback.


Findings
The Greenest City Scholars program model has contributed to the sustainability goals at UBC and the City of Vancouver and has supported the partnership between the two organizations. The program has grown over its five-year history and is considered to be a central part of the partnership. Breadth of student participants from across the university and high participation from City departments have been achieved. The model is now being adapted to be delivered within other partnerships.


Practical implications
The experiences presented in this case study can help other higher education institutions understand how a co-curricular graduate student work experience program could help to bolster their own sustainability partnerships.


Originality/value
This paper makes a contribution by providing insight into the use of a graduate student program to advance the goals of a university–community sustainability partnership.

Purpose– Delivery of sustainability-related curriculum to undergraduate students can be problematic due to the traditional "siloing" of curriculum by faculties along disciplinary lines. In addition, while there is often a ready availability of courses focused on sustainability issues in the later years of students' programs, few early entry-level courses focused on sustainability, broad enough to apply to all disciplines, are available to students in the first year of their program.Design/methodology/approach– In this paper, we describe the development, and preliminary implementation, of an entry-level, interdisciplinary sustainability course. To do so, the authors describe the development of a university-wide initiative designed to bridge units on campus working and teaching in sustainability areas, and to promote and support sustainability curriculum development.Findings– The authors describe the conceptual framework for organising course content and delivery. The authors conclude with an informal assessment of the successes and challenges, and offer learning activities, student assessments and course administration recommendations for consideration when developing courses with similar learning goals.Originality/value– The positive and negative experiences gained through developing and offering a course of this nature, in a large research-focused university, offers knew insights into potential barriers for implementing first-year cross-cutting sustainability curriculum.